How to Play the Card Game 500

The game of 500 is a partner, trick-taking game for four players. Teams simply bid their hands in hopes of taking at least that number of tricks for a given round. Of course, you can be outbid by the opposing team, but you’ll have a chance to do it all over again on the next hand. This is a fairly fast and relatively easy game once all players get used to bidding, playing and scoring.

Things You'll Need

• Deck of cards
• Playing surface
• Pad of paper
• Pen
• 4 players

Instructions

1. Reduce the size of your deck by removing the 3’s and 2’s of both red suits and the 4’s, 3’s and 2’s of both black suits. Also, you’ll need to add one joker to the deck, bringing the total number of cards to 43.

2. Decide teams by sitting opposite the table with your partner.

3. Determine the order of play by dealing out the deck one card at a time until a Jack is dealt. The person with the Jack will act as the first dealer. Bidding and play will then begin to his left and move around the table in a clockwise direction (subsequent deals will also follow this same path).

4. Deal out the deck until each player has a total of 10 cards. There should also be a kitty of 3 cards in the middle of the table. Typically, you’ll deal out increments of 3 cards, 4 cards and another 3 cards to each player with a single card dealt to the kitty between each increment.

5. Bid your hands by naming the number of tricks you propose to take and the suit in which will act as trump for the hand. Bidding starts to the dealer’s left and moves around the table with each player passing or raising the bid in either the number of tricks or the suit in which will act as trump. Lowest suit is Spades followed by Clubs, Diamonds, Hearts and No Trump (see Tips for further details on bidding). You may also opt to “Go It Alone.” This means your partner will set down his hand and you’ll play without his help. During hands such as this, you do not want to take any tricks.

6. Play your cards by either following suit or trumping when unable to follow suit. Highest suited card or, in the case of a trumped trick, highest trump card wins the trick. Player must always follow suit when possible. If you do not have suit, you may either trump or throw off—playing any unwanted card in your hand.

7. Earn points towards your overall score (see Tips for values) by making at least the number of tricks you’ve declared, if you won the bid, at the start of the hand.

8. Win the game of 500 by being the first team to reach 500 points.

Tips & Warnings

• When bidding in the game of 500, each player must either pass or raise the bid. To raise a bid, you need to either propose to take more tricks or take the exact same number of trick in a higher suit. If the first player bids 6 diamonds, you must bid higher than 6 tricks in any suit or 6 tricks in Hearts or No Trump to raise the bid.

• No trump means there will be no suit acting as trump for this hand of the game.

• Ranking order of Trump: Joker, J of Trump, J of same color, A, K, Q, 10 and down.

• Scoring tricks breaks down as follows:

• Spades—6 (40 points), 7 (140 points), 8 (240 points), 9 (340 points) and 10 (440 points).

• Clubs—6 (60 points), 7 (160 points), 8 (260 points), 9 (360 points) and 10 (460 points).

• Diamonds—6 (80 points), 7 (180 points), 8 (280 points), 9 (380 points) and 10 (480 points).

• Hearts—6 (100 points), 7 (200 points), 8 (300 points), 9 (400 points) and 10 (500 points).

• No Trump—6 (120 points), 7 (220 points), 8 (320 points), 9 (420 points) and 10 (520 points).

• Go It Alone—0 (250 points).

• When a team is unable to take the number of tricks they’ve bid, they lose the same amount of points they would’ve won for the hand. The opposing team then earns a total of 10 points for each trick they’ve taken for that round.

Resources

• Yahoo! Card Games